A Precious Gift
by skyebugs
Summary: A little twist on Scarlett's fall down the stairs and its aftermath, hopefully leading towards a reconciliation.
1. Chapter 1

_So what does one do, when one is behind on everything, including one's fan fiction writing? One writes a new story of course. This little story (it will have 3 chapters in total, though it will take me a while to get there) was inspired by a conversation I had with LawdyMissScarlett at some point last year. I stole some sentences from MM to make it happen.  
_

 _As always, thanks go to iso. I usually say "yes, ma'am" to her, but was now made to say "no ma'am" instead and I hope she'll approve.  
_

* * *

The birth of the second Butler baby was quite unlike that of the first.

For one thing, the expectant father could not be found pacing outside the room in happy anxiety, as he had during that first joyous occasion. Instead he sat in the darkened dining room downstairs, sprawled heavily in his chair, the smell of whisky swirling so thick around him that, when Melanie Wilkes finally opened the door to announce the birth of his son, she had to keep herself from taking a hasty step back. The soft light pouring in from the hallway revealed the new father coatless and unshaven, staring at a half empty decanter in front of him. He made no move to get up at the news.

"Is she…" he began hoarsely.

"Scarlett is in fine health, Captain Butler. Dr. Meade is very pleased. She is resting now, but I imagine she will want something to eat soon."

He nodded once abruptly, without looking up. Melanie lingered in the doorway with a hesitant swish of her skirts. She had hoped he might offer to bring Scarlett dinner himself, as he had when Bonnie was born, or that she, Melanie, would somehow muster the courage to suggest it, if he didn't. But she had been so terribly shy around him after his return and he looked so withdrawn and darkly forbidding in his silence now that she could not find the nerve after all. She turned to leave, closing the heavy door behind her with a sigh.

And then too the birth of the first Butler baby had mostly been an event for its family. The birth of the second was an event for the whole of Atlanta. Nine months to the day, the baby's mother had been caught in adultery. Three days later, her husband had deserted her. Three months after that, he had come back, she had tumbled down the stairs of their mansion, and all of Atlanta had learned that she was with child. It was a feat of elementary arithmetic to put these facts together. Public opinion was only divided on minor particulars. Had the unfaithful woman launched herself down a flight of stairs to erase the proof of her sin or had her husband done it for her, in a fit of wrath? One's position on the matter largely depended on how far one credited Captain Butler's character and restraint. No one credited Scarlett with anything and no one thought it had been an accident.

Regardless of who had been behind it, the fall had not fulfilled its purpose. The child had survived inside its mother's battered body and through her long illness afterwards. It had survived and it was now ready to be born—and Atlanta was waiting with bated breath for the final addition to the sum of this momentous scandal, the greatest the town had ever seen. No one but her father had spent any amount of time speculating what color Bonnie Butler's eyes and hair would be when she was born, and he had kept that tender, foolish exercise wholly to himself. Everyone was wondering that about the new Butler baby, and few had been shy about voicing their guesses. Some measure of public circumspection had been imposed on men when rumor spread that Captain Butler had promised to meet anyone wishing to inquire into the legitimacy of his unborn child on a field, at dawn. It was far from certain that the threat had indeed come from him, but, even if it had, it did little to deter women, who knew themselves safe of his challenge—and women in all walks of life were the main conduit of such talk to begin with. Only the previous week, Mammy had had to throw two new maids out on their ear after she had caught them indulging in dangerous genealogical speculation in the hallway.

Yet despite all this, in at least one aspect the new baby's arrival could be counted much more fortunate than that of its sister. For the most important presence in a baby's life was, undoubtedly, its mother—and Scarlett was, for the first time in her life, looking forward to the birth of a child with something resembling joy. Hers was a complicated sort of joy, kept hidden from both her stony-faced husband and the gleeful gossips of Atlanta, a joy made in equal measures fierce and fearful by all that had happened since the baby's conception.

She had been three months pregnant when she had fallen down the stairs. Waking up in a whirlwind of pain and bewilderment after the accident, her first clear thought had been that she had lost her baby. How strange that such a thought could hurt her, when there were hot, sharp pinchers plucking mercilessly at her flesh, when a dull knife stuck in her left side sawed viciously inward every time she drew breath, when her head felt as if it would split open at the slightest motion… Stranger still that it should have been the first child she really wanted, her fleeting resentment at her condition now entirely forgotten. She had wanted it and she had lost it. Yet just before she slipped back into the waters of mindless, feverish fear from which she had briefly emerged to measure her loss, Melanie's voice whispered in her ear.

"You have to be strong, dear. You have to be strong for your baby."

So she was still pregnant and the baby was not gone after all! But her tired mind could not fathom that she would have to be strong now and fight for both of their lives. She was exhausted and in pain, and had no strength left to pick up this burden. She needed someone else to do it for her. She needed Rhett. Rhett was strong and he loved children. Rhett would know what to do. But Rhett had jeering eyes and a cruel smile, and he didn't want her. He didn't want their child. He'd said—he'd said…

"We'll be strong together," Melanie's soft voice cut through the rising darkness once again. "Everything will be all right."

Everything was not all right. Everything was heat and pain. The Yankees were coming and Melanie was having her baby. No, it was she that was having a baby and the town was afire and Rhett nowhere to be found. They had to hurry, leave before the Yankees arrived, but they couldn't because of the baby. They would have to leave the baby behind. _My poor baby. My poor baby,_ cried a voice in muffled delirium. No, she would stay with her baby. They could go—Melanie and Wade and Prissy—they could go and be safe, but she would stay here. She would fight the Yankees if she had to, but they won't take the baby from her. She was not afraid. Still, she clung fiercely to Melanie's hand.

"Don't go yet," she rasped. "Don't leave me."

"You know I won't leave you, dear. Everything will be all right. I'm here."

But Rhett had left. She had seen his broad shoulders dissolving into the night on that dark road. He had kissed her and then he had left, and now she had crawled for miles in an endless nightmare. She was thirsty and she was in so much pain. _Water,_ she tried to say through cracked lips, but no sound came out. He had left her to die. Melanie was driving the wagon, but it was small and rickety and the road was so uneven. A slab of wood from the wagon's bottom was digging cruelly into her side. She tried to change position, but she was too weak to manage it and the whole world was swaying unsteadily with the wagon, rolling up nausea in her stomach and a throbbing pain in her head as she stared up into the dark, dark sky…

The days of her illness passed over her like a tumultuous flood, leaving her weak and bruised in their wake. But just as they had depleted her in body and spirit, they had also served to tie her to the baby growing inside her in ways that went much deeper than her initial feelings towards it. When she had finally woken up as a convalescent, to learn that the child had survived inside her womb, she had placed shaky hands on her abdomen and had been fiercely glad. They had pulled through together—she and this child, the first she had ever wanted. Little else mattered.

And throughout the months that followed, months of tedious, enforced rest and fear for her health, months of cold silence between her and Rhett, when she had felt more trapped and miserable than ever before, she had clung to the baby as to a tiny ray of hope on the horizon. He would be a perfect little boy and he would be all hers. She would care for him and make sure he had everything he ever wanted. And she would not let Rhett take him away from her, like he had Bonnie. After all, hadn't Rhett shown, through words and gestures alike, that he didn't care for either her or the baby? If she needed more proof of that after their vicious confrontation on the stairs, his behavior in the months following her illness had served to seal her conclusion.

Oh, he had apologized to her! But could one truly apologize for almost killing one's wife and child? It did not occur to her that Rhett might have entertained the exact same question as he walked into her room after the accident, looking entirely unlike himself—grave and pale and sober. Many things did not occur to her at the time, for it was barely a day after she had recovered from her fever and everything around her was still dim, hazy and tiresome.

"I owe you an apology," he said stiffly. "You have been injured twice through inexcusable behavior on my part. I mean, of course, your delicate condition and the accident that almost cost you your life. I can only beg your forgiveness on both counts, and assure you that I deeply regret my actions and wish more than anything that I could take them back."

She had looked at the severe folds of his necktie as he first started to speak, but then turned her head towards the wall as he recited the rest of his apology. She was not ready for this, for any of it—she didn't want to hear it and, in truth, barely heard more than the sound of his voice. Sometimes at a party, when one was tired and everyone was speaking at once, the only way to get through it was to let the noise wash over you and not listen to the words themselves, for else hundreds of conversations would rush in over you at once and strain your mind to the point of madness. No, she didn't want to hear him.

"I am tired," she said tonelessly.

"Of course," she heard him exhale. "I—"

But he never did finish his sentence. He left the room so quietly that, when after long minutes Scarlett finally turned her head to check, she realized he must have been gone for a while. And it was only then that some of his words finally sank in and her mind registered that he had referred to her pregnancy as an injury and had claimed to regret his part in it. She would have been in perfect agreement with such an apology for any of her first three pregnancies, if anyone had thought to extend it to her. But this one—this one stung like a slap and she hardened her heart against him once more. He had not once inquired after the child.

And he would not during the months that followed either, though he would try for some time yet to coax her into forgiving him. He never did so openly after that first visit and, in fact, rarely came to see her at all. But Bonnie came almost every day and she occasionally brought gifts that she could not have possibly selected herself. Some were small, like flowers or bonbons, others more expensive, though never more than a jeweled pin or a delicate hair comb. By far the most magnificent was a great silk fan that Bonnie presented her with during the last suffocating heat of August. It was the loveliest jade-green, with tiny glinting goldfish strewn all across the top of its folds, looking, with every swish of the fan, as if they were swimming along the surface of a clear green water.

Scarlett, who had at first resented not being able to reject the presents, delivered as they were by her small daughter, and had in the meantime come to secretly look forward to them, frowned at it when she saw it. It tugged at her mind like a mute reminder, but of what she did not know and she half-suspected some joke at her expense. Somehow, it felt more intimate than the previous gifts. This would be the one she sent back, she decided. She would have a servant hand it back to Rhett as soon as Bonnie left. But when the time came, she found she could not part with it, for it was so startlingly beautiful it made even her dreary sickroom come alive. She had been cooped up in here for so long, had been so sick in body and weary in mind, with so little to alleviate her misery. She could not bear to give this up as well. She would give back the next gift instead.

But the fan was to be the last gift of its kind she would receive. A few days later Rhett himself came into her room, holding a box of bonbons. Clad only in her nightgown and wrapper, Scarlett was in an armchair by the door of her dressing room, supervising Prissy who was packing the clothes she would need for Tara. She had decided to go home, though it was only yesterday that Dr. Meade had expressed his firm disapproval of the plan. But she could not endure the thought of staying here even a day longer. Atlanta was stifling and deadly, bearing down on her with the weight of countless bad dreams and worse memories. She would not get better until she was home, and the need to run away burned so strongly in her weakened body that she almost trembled with it. She squared her thin shoulders when Rhett entered the room, ready to speak out in defense of her cause, but the box of bonbons in his hand startled her into silence.

"Hello," he said in a careful voice. "I came to—What is she doing?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, as Prissy struggled to push a trunk out of the dressing room.

"Prissy? She is packing," Scarlett said, not quite meeting his eyes. "I am going home to Tara tomorrow."

"Tara? I thought Dr. Meade had declared it out of the question."

"Yes," she shrugged, "but I've decided to go nonetheless. I'm fine, really. I've been recovered for weeks now."

He looked at her impassibly for a few seconds, the corners of his mouth curling down.

"Prissy," he said, "leave that trunk and go downstairs. Whatever you've packed, you can unpack later."

"Yes, sir," Prissy curtsied and hurried to leave the room. Scarlett watched her go, her jaw clenching slightly. There was no use in ordering the girl to stay, for she didn't want her eavesdropping on the conversation, not if Rhett was going to be difficult.

"There is no need for that sort of high-handed behavior," she said, turning to him with a cold flash in her eyes. "I have already decided that I am going."

"And you will decide against it," he shrugged, "as soon as you weigh the risks with a clear mind."

"You don't understand—"

"I think I understand perfectly. Dr. Meade made it very clear that he expected this pregnancy—" Her cheeks colored suddenly at the word. "—to be a difficult one in light of your illness, and that you required both complete rest and constant supervision going forward. Neither of which would be facilitated by your sojourn at a farm."

Scarlett struggled to keep her voice even, the first tendrils of anguish already coiling up in her throat. "I can rest at Tara. It would be better for me—"

"Scarlett, you've only been allowed out of bed for a total of five days now. On two of those days, you were too weak to get up. Traveling so soon might well incapacitate you for weeks. And even if it doesn't—what if you fall ill on the train or at Tara, with only a country doctor, if any at all, to look after you? What would happen then?"

He would not back down, she realized. He would bar her way with a wall of patient condescension and hypocritical concern and he would not allow her to leave. She would languish here, trapped in a cage, while the soothing dream of Tara melted away. Desperation and anger rose in her chest, so heavy and so scorching that she could hardly draw breath for their heat.

"You don't care what would happen if I was ill!" she ground out through clenched teeth. "You care that I might have the baby there and then people will think—"

"I do not give a damn what fools think," he cut in, roughly. "And, frankly, I do not give a damn whether you have this baby or not. I do, however, care about your health and the way you are determined to risk it."

Her composure gave way under the strain of her fury, her face twisting into a pale, angry mask. "Say what you will," she cried, starting to rise from the armchair. "I will go home and you can't stop me!"

Suddenly his hand was on her shoulder and he was pushing her down on her seat, gently but with overbearing force. "In that you are quite mistaken," he said without releasing her, though her whole body had stiffened against his touch. "You will find that I can stop you and that indeed I will. My light exercise of them might have led you to forget that, as your husband, I enjoy a number of prerogatives under the laws of this country. I would not hesitate for a second to act in that capacity in the present situation."

She could feel his hand burning her shoulder through her thin wrapper, and she jerked away towards the back of the chair to escape it.

"You know," she said, staring up at him with cold hatred, "I wish I had died rather than married you."

She'd struck him, she knew, for his shoulders briefly tensed up in the manner of one who'd received a blow to the chest and struggles to absorb it standing. That small hitch filled her with such cruel satisfaction that she almost smiled. But when Rhett spoke, his voice was cold and unaffected.

"Never worry, on that you have made your feelings quite clear. But in the interest of keeping you alive, this will nonetheless be my last word on the matter. You are not to travel without my and your doctor's permission."

He bowed and was gone, leaving Scarlett to mull upon her overall defeat and her small victory over him at the end, that strangely didn't feel entirely like one. He hadn't given her the box of bonbons, she mused irrelevantly later that evening. She half-expected to see it in Bonnie's hands, when she came to visit the next day. But there was no gift that day. There was no gift for almost a week and, when one did come, it was a picture Bonnie had drawn of her kitten—a smudge of black and brown lines that Scarlett struggled mightily to feign any sort of enthusiasm in.

Soon after that, she was allowed to leave her bed for good and Bonnie's visits stopped. But while being free of her sickroom should have soothed her mind, Scarlett soon found herself even more bored and stifled than she had been before. She could not leave the house, for Dr. Meade had advised against it and, even had she wanted to disregard his decree, where could she go? She was pale, thin and visibly pregnant, and, from the worried, falsely cheerful way Melanie had answered some of her questions, she had a fair idea that Atlanta was now thoroughly against her. Inside the house there was little to amuse her. Melanie was the only person that ever visited. The children vastly preferred spending their time with Rhett. And Rhett—Rhett had turned into a polite, distant stranger. It startled her, the first time he addressed her with that impersonal courtesy, as if they had just met in the lobby of a hotel and there had never been anything between them before. It startled her and she did not quite know what to make of it. But as the days wore on, she realized that the change in him went deeper than just his manner.

He was sober and quiet and preoccupied. He was at home more often for supper now and he was kinder to the servants and more affectionate to Wade and Ella. With her, he was polite and disinterested. He never referred to anything in their past, pleasant or otherwise, and did not fling softly drawled barbs at her or sting her with sarcasm, as had been his custom. He was pleasant to her now, almost as though she were a stranger; but, as his eyes had once followed her, they now followed Bonnie. It was as though the swift flood of his life had been diverted into one narrow channel. And as father and daughter spent all their time together, with Wade and Ella occasionally drawn inside their charmed circle and always hanging hopeful on its edges, Scarlett felt that she had been entirely left out. The children all preferred Rhett, and the only person Rhett truly cared about was Bonnie.

But it did not matter. She would have her baby and he would love only her. She drew even closer to the child during the second half of her pregnancy, spurred by the knowledge that they were both unwanted. Her pride might have prevented her from accepting that Rhett no longer cared about anything she did, or at least it kept her from dwelling on it too much. But that he did not care about the baby, that he never referred to her pregnancy at all even obliquely, was an unmistakable fact and one she could not let pass. Perhaps he still thought he wasn't the father or else who knew what thoughts were going through his head. She had never raised the topic herself so as not to break their peace. But underneath the cool, smooth surface of her life, her feelings for the child gradually hardened into a sharp, fierce love that was as much a weapon as it was a shield.

And that was the only thing that kept her from sinking into lethargy or despair towards the end of her confinement. Her belly was now pushing fully against her ribcage and Dr. Meade was worried that her newly-healed rib would not withstand the birth without breaking. He foresaw a difficult birth as it was, and the thought kept Scarlett awake with anxiety. Standing up eased the pressure slightly, so she paced her room every night, wishing more than ever that she could be at Tara and not here. She was almost sick with longing for home. And that too was Rhett's fault. Rhett, whom she could hear retiring to his room early each evening, unburdened by any worry for her or the child.

The labor, when it came, was smooth and easier than anyone had dared hope. It meant hours and hours of pain, but no broken rib at the end. And then the baby, freshly bathed and swaddled, was finally placed into her arms and she cooed at it softly, her chest full of some trembling emotion that threatened to spill over.

"You belong to me, don't you?" she whispered and realized, as she said it, that it was true. Wade and Ella and Bonnie, they had all belonged to their fathers or their extended families, and she had not minded, for she did not truly feel they were hers. But this baby—this baby belonged utterly to her and to no one else.

She would make sure that it was true, she thought fiercely. And she would make it perfectly clear to Rhett as well, as soon as he came into the room to see his son. He was not to think that he could waltz in here and be first in the baby's heart, not after he had been so hateful to her during the last months. But then the little boy in her arms opened his eyes to look at her and she forgot her thoughts. For his eyes were black, unmistakably and familiarly so, and before she knew it, she had started to cry.

When an hour passed, the baby fed and placed into his bassinet, and there was still no sign of Rhett, a twinge of anxious unease slithered into her chest. Rhett had been there immediately after Bonnie was born, before she was even swaddled. She remembered that he had come to her, Scarlett, afterwards and had kissed her forehead, and had laughed and kissed her again when she had grumbled at him. There would be nothing of the sort today, of course, but could it be that he would not come to see the child at all? That was too much, even for him. He could not possibly think that was acceptable behavior… could he?

After a while, Melanie came in, carrying a great silver tray with dinner. Spying its contents, Scarlett suddenly relaxed against her pillow. There was a small crystal bowl in one corner, holding three snowy mounds of peach ice cream—the same kind Rhett had ordered made for her after Bonnie's birth. So that was his game, she thought. He had sent Melanie in now, like he had sent Bonnie to bring her gifts when she was ill. All so that he could gain her forgiveness before showing his face. Well, he was mistaken if he thought she was that easily played. She would not fall for it this time.

"You can take the ice cream back to the kitchen," she said airily. "I don't want it."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Melanie said quickly. "I just remembered that you had it last time and thought—"

"You thought? _You_ had it made?" Scarlett asked in a stricken voice before she could stop herself and felt blood rush into cheeks at how revealing the question had sounded.

But Melanie seemed not to notice. "Yes," she fluttered over the tray, "but I will take it back, dear, don't worry."

"Yes, make sure that you do," Scarlett said coldly, masking her mortification with petulance. "I don't want it."

She watched with crossed arms as a flustered Melanie left the room with the crystal bowl. And then, because she was foolish, she sank back against her pillows and cried.


	2. Chapter 2

_Hey, peeps. I've been busy and generally bad at writing, but here's an installment for this little story. It's half of what I had hoped the second installment would be, but since the second half was quite different in tone and would have taken me a few months to complete, I thought this was the way to go. As always, much love to iso and everyone who reviewed._

* * *

Gerald Alexander Butler was a fine little boy. Or at least his mother had reason to think so, proudly and privately, at least once every other day. He compared favorably not only to his two older siblings, who in their time had been but timid, mewling nuisances, but to his youngest sister as well, who up until that point had been his mother's undisputed favorite among her children. His preeminence extended beyond the circle of his immediate family, too. It was, after all, no surprise that he would be vastly superior to his pale Benteen cousins; and as for the only serious competition he had encountered, that of golden-haired Beau Wilkes, whom Scarlett had long considered the model of all a child should be, Alexander had vanquished that quite easily as well. It was not two weeks after his birth that Scarlett, looking down at her gurgling son, had impulsively decided that he was a much finer child than even Beau had been at his age. She had never after that revisited the question.

The reason for this precocious string of victories was not easily discernible. It couldn't be that Alexander was a handsome baby, for so had been his sister Bonnie, and her good looks were more likely to flatter her mother's vanity, seeing as they had come from her side of the family. Alexander, on the other hand, looked a lot like his father. Nor could the reason be that he was a well-behaved child, for he wasn't, not particularly. He could be a perfectly delightful baby, all cooing and smiles, and the one feature he had inherited from his mother, her dimples, undoubtedly helped his charm. But there was even at this tender age a thread of unmistakable stubbornness in him and he was quick to vent his protest in lusty fury whenever the world did not accede immediately to his wishes.

One would have thought the absence of paternal coddling might have mitigated that side to him, for it was that, above all things, that had enabled his sister to run wild. But while Alexander could not count on a responsive audience in his father, the way Bonnie had, he had found one in his mother. Of all Scarlett's children, he was the one least touched by Mammy's methods and famed discipline. Any suggestion that his whims not be catered to, nor his tantrums indulged (ideas she herself had championed for Bonnie in her infancy), Scarlett now carelessly waved aside. For, after all, Mammy had only ever raised girls. What did she know about boys and how they were supposed to behave? Scarlett had decided her son would be strong willed and spirited and, like most people, she easily mistook temper for character on that count. Besides, Alexander quieted without fail at the sound of his mother's voice, even when— _especially_ when—he wouldn't for Mammy or Prissy. And he always gurgled happily and laughed when she smiled down at him. The particular circumstances of her pregnancy aside, this was one clear reason why he was Scarlett's favorite among her children.

The time after his birth had been difficult. He had been a January child, but it had taken Scarlett till April to finally be able to depart for Tara. It had made sense to stay in the comfort of the Atlanta mansion until spring was well under way, for newborn babies were frail and mothers needed time to recover from birth. She didn't remember who had pleaded that case (Dr. Meade, Mammy, Melanie? It hadn't been Rhett. He hadn't intervened at all.), but she had acquiesced. A strange sort of tiredness had come over her after Alexander's birth, as if she had emerged from a battle without knowing what it had been fought for or who the victor was.

Besides, she was dimly aware of something everyone around her knew quite well. Atlanta had to see the baby, if she was ever to regain any semblance of footing in town. People had to effuse insincerely about the boy being the spitting image of his father and oh, how happy Captain Butler must be to finally have a son of his own… That was to be the only tacit acknowledgment of their error and the key to her social restoration. And so the visits had started, as soon as Scarlett was well enough to receive. The people who came to call were those into whose parlors her sister-in-law had forcefully dragged her during Rhett's absence, the ones who had sided with Melanie—and, by extension, Scarlett—over India Wilkes that fateful spring. Melanie herself was always present for these visits, too. She sat near the door with her sewing, looking for all the world like a calm, grave archangel, ready to bar with the steel of the sword anyone who might be trying to leave.

She needn't have worried. The people calling on Scarlett for the first time in years had no reason to leave. They hadn't come to admit their own errors; they had come to get confirmation of other people's errors and be gratified. For months on end, they had smarted under the superior smirks of India's adherents, who had taken Scarlett's pregnancy as indisputable proof of her adultery. For months, even the most loyal of Melanie's partisans had felt the sting of humiliation and had regretted receiving Scarlett the previous spring. But now they were vindicated through the providence of Alexander's black eyes and slight fuzz of dark hair. They were vindicated and they were ready to mount their counterattack. For wasn't it despicable how India's supporters had taken for true and spread a vicious rumor that could have ruined the life of an innocent child? If they were capable of that, wasn't it probable that they had been taken in by a venomous lie from the very start, that they had slandered an honorable man and Scarlett for nothing? What better proof could one want?

India's supporters were themselves not immune to the sway of this argument. They had overplayed their hand on the matter of the baby's paternity and had now been pushed into castigated diffidence. Many silently withdrew their support of the cause in the weeks following Alexander's birth. Still others went further. They visited Scarlett and were welcomed back under Melanie's wing. They went quite happily, too, for they could feel the town teetering on the brink of a precipice. To preserve its unity, Atlanta had almost decided that it was time to sacrifice India Wilkes. Another push and everyone would decide that she had been nothing all along but a bitter old maid turned crazy with spite. And once that came to happen, the scandal would be buried for good.

For her part, Scarlett was only very distantly attuned to these subterranean currents in the town's life or the imminent defeat of her enemy. All she knew was that the visits she was receiving, necessary though they were, were also excruciating. They rivalled any social gathering she had ever attended, even those dreadful sewing circles Melanie had forced her to attend last spring, in tediousness and awkwardness. They were like a prolonged nightmare that stretched her nerves to their breaking point and left her tired and aimlessly irritated at the end, with no possible relief in sight. And as bad as they were, they got much worse once Rhett started attending as well.

The first time he returned home to find her entertaining guests, he stopped in the doorway and assessed them sharply while he bowed, as if trying to divine the reason for their presence. But then his eyes found Melanie seated by the door—her hands crossed patiently in her lap, like she was presiding over a gathering of children— and he fell into his role as he advanced into the room, as if she had given him his cue. He had been a distant, courteous stranger to his wife for months, but now he suddenly bent down and kissed her cheek. Scarlett started in shock before she could control herself, and felt the weight of scrutiny immediately on her. To cover the misstep, she raised a hand to briefly caress Rhett's jaw in response. He smiled an odd little smile that looked half bitter, half cynical, and she suddenly thought that, if not for the dozen eyes trained on them, she would have gladly sunk her nails into his face. She had slid into a sort of apathy towards him after Alexander's birth, but now there was a knot of anger in her throat at this charade.

And the play was not over yet. Rhett had so far manifested precious little interest in Alexander. He had in fact behaved the way men of his station did with their children, the way Scarlett had once assumed he would behave as a father, before witnessing his extraordinary devotion to Bonnie. She did not know why she should be so hurt and humiliated by that behavior now. He had come to see his son the day after he was born. Hands planted firmly in his pockets, he had stood by the crib in her room and uttered some platitude she could never afterwards remember. He hadn't offered to hold Alexander that day, nor had he at any point after that. All he had to offer when he saw his son were mild, disinterested comments about the pace of his growth. Yet now, thrown on a stage in front of Atlanta, he rocked on his heels in front of the bassinet and then carefully reached down, clearly intending to pick up the boy.

"He's just fallen asleep," Scarlett said, an edge of curt vehemence in her voice.

"Ah, of course," he murmured and stepped away from the bassinet. There was a flash of something in his eyes—relief, disappointment, anger at her for thwarting his performance? She didn't know and didn't care. She couldn't have stomached the spectacle of him holding Alexander at this late date. How dare he come here to play the doting father, she thought savagely, how dare he?

"You must be so proud of him, Captain Butler," Mrs. Bonnell said with a smile.

"He is the light of my eyes," Rhett replied gravely, inclining his head, and Scarlett pressed her nails into the flesh of her palms, wishing she'd scratched his eyes out when she'd had the chance, Atlanta's gossips be damned.

She would have felt more strongly about it had she understood the full extent to which the town's sympathy centered on Rhett these days. They pitied him for being married to Scarlett (whose faults were legion, even if she had not, after all, sunk to adultery) and they had a keen, compassionate sense of how last year's scandal must have affected a man like him. That, too, was Scarlett's fault, even if she _had_ been innocent, for Caesar's wife ought to be above suspicion. Yet here Captain Butler was, standing gallantly by her and his son. Should he continue to suffer for his wife's sins? Should his newborn son be punished? The esteem Atlanta had for Melanie aside, this wave of sympathy for Rhett was what drove the mending of Scarlett's reputation in the first months of 1872.

And while she was unaware of it, Rhett wasn't. He was now constantly present when Scarlett was receiving. He always arrived after the guests, dropped a casual kiss on Scarlett's cheek and sat down by her side to accept congratulations on his son, affecting a humbly pleased air that irritated her to no end. He sometimes tickled Alexander's tummy or chin with one finger if she was holding him. He had never again tried to pick him up from the bassinet. And, however unbearable the pretense was to Scarlett, the picture they painted together worked. In the first week of April, almost a year since the scandal had started, the Elsings came to visit. Mrs. Elsing herself had not come, but Fanny said her mother was in bed with a cold and sending her regards. The war was well and truly won.

When the Elsings had finally left, and Rhett was walking Melanie to the door, Scarlett sank against the back of the settee, exhausted. She closed her eyes against the terrible headache building behind them and rubbed her forehead tiredly. She couldn't summon the energy to return to her room. All she wanted was dark and peace, for Alexander to sleep a few solid hours, for no one else to come visit this week, this month… All that had happened since the birth had depleted her thoroughly; she felt beaten down and ready to retreat. Even her fury at Rhett, which had carried her through the first visits he attended, had ebbed away and now she was just tired and helpless. And there was little shelter to be found in her room. The previous week her nightmares had returned. She dreamed as always that she was running through fog, but now the fog was as thick as molasses and she was slowed down in it and finally drowned. She woke up drenched in sweat but unable to scream, as if the suffocating weight was still covering her mouth. These were restless nights, punctuated only by Alexander's cries, and they sapped away the energy she needed to find a way out.

"How would you like to go to Tara tomorrow or the day after?" Rhett's voice cut through the silence unexpectedly. She could tell he had come back and was hovering in the doorway, but she did not want to open her eyes and see his expression. His voice was kind, not in that dispassionate way it had been of late, but almost like his old voice, when he still cared a little about what she did. She was comforted by it and nodded without opening her eyes. The following day she was on the train to Tara.


	3. Chapter 3

_So, here's to Kinderby and bribery, who coaxed an update out of me! I hope you guys enjoy it. Thanks to everyone who's left reviews, and especially to longtime reader annablake. Thanks to iso, as always. Oh, and I stole a little from MM here and there to make this work._

* * *

They were home again in mid-May. By that time, Alexander was a strong, cheerful baby who sat contently in Scarlett's arms and surveyed the train depot around him with a great deal of interest. His mother, in turn, looked much better than when she had left Atlanta. The hunted, exhausted air had gone from her face and her cheeks were rounded and faintly pink. Her green eyes were alert and sparkling again. She smiled at the sight of Bonnie and Rhett, who had come to meet them at the depot, and ruffled Bonnie's inky black curls with one hand. Mindful of the palpable interest of the crowds surrounding them, she turned a cheek for Rhett's lips—a caress she would not have invited otherwise. He took his cue from her. He kissed her cheek briefly and then tickled Alexander's tummy with one finger, as had been his custom before their departure. "Hello," he said to the bundle in her arms, while Scarlett's head was still angled away from him and she could not see his face. And that was all. He didn't offer to take the child from her or comment on his growth. For a moment, the old helpless anger that had drained away her strength and sent her running from Atlanta earlier that spring rose in her throat again in a bitter wave.

On the way home, she was full of County news. Will thought the cotton might do well this year, which they needed badly after the low prices last fall. He had a new mouth to feed as well. Suellen had had a baby—another girl, just as whiny and likely to take after her mother as her other two. Sally and Alex Fontaine had married last fall, and Sally too was having a baby—she spelled this last out so the children would not comprehend. It was strange, when you thought about it, her having been married to his brother and his having been engaged to Dimity Munroe… She chattered on rapidly, not willing to let any silence fall between them in the carriage. Yet there were many things that she left out. Images of the County as it was now that she didn't like to think about, but also stories of Alexander. How Suellen was clearly jealous for having failed to give birth to a boy herself. How Alexander liked to sleep on Will's shoulder. How Alex Fontaine had laughed and said she'd done well to name a child after a war hero such as himself. It seemed like every other day at Tara had become entangled with a story about her son and now had to be left out. It was Ella in the end who remedied the omission.

"Alex can make bubbles with his mouth," she informed her sister and stepfather, who were sitting opposite her in the carriage.

"Can he now?" Rhett asked with a small smile. There was something in his dark face that looked almost eager—or it would have, had Scarlett not known how good he was at indulging Ella.

"Oh yes," Ella nodded. "He'll show you."

It was impossible to convince little Alexander to perform on cue, yet she gave it her best try. It wasn't long before she was trying to blow spit bubbles herself to inspire her brother, and Bonnie followed suit. An exasperated Scarlett tried to admonish them—to little effect, for as long as Rhett seemed entertained, Bonnie would not heed her and even the easily cowed Ella felt safe to misbehave. And then Alexander finally grasped the game. He blew a smiling bubble, swinging his arms and legs down at the same time with enough force to propel himself off his mother's lap, had her arm not been firmly around him. He grinned so proudly that Scarlett, too, started to laugh.

It didn't take long for life in Atlanta to resume its rhythms from before their journey to Tara. Rhett maintained his punctilious courtesy—and his distance. He was engrossed in Bonnie and in his campaign to court Atlanta's approval, a task in which he seemed to have succeeded almost beyond belief. He had taken to attending political meetings outside the house during Scarlett's confinement the previous year, sometimes taking Bonnie with him. But it was only now that she was back and could see some of the people he had taken to inviting to their house in the evenings, that she realized to what extent he had really made his way back into the town's good graces. Men who had once thought hanging too good for Rhett could now be found in her parlor, drinking with him as if he was a capital fellow.

It seemed to Scarlett at times that they were living in two different worlds—and, of the two, hers had been severely diminished. Many of her Carpetbagger and Scalawag friends had left town after the governor's resignation the previous October, and those left were no fun to be around anymore. The combined efforts of Melanie and Rhett had ensured that she was begrudgingly accepted by Atlanta's society; yet she was firmly on its margins and did not welcome the prospect of an arduous battle to regain what she'd once lost. These days her world revolved almost entirely around the house, the new baby—and thoughts of Ashley. It had been a long time since she'd last seen him alone, for she naturally could not see him during her confinement and had somehow not thought of it during the dark months afterwards. But now, her forces renewed by the stay at Tara, she thought of him constantly.

She longed above all to see him again and assure herself that he still loved her, that his love had not died with the shameful scandal last year or their long separation. She longed to see him and have him look at her with that lazy silver smile of his, the one that made her feel as if she was fourteen again and nothing could ever be wrong with the world. She would have stayed at Tara longer if she hadn't craved his presence, craved to be alone with him again so she could wrap the certainty of his love around her like a warm, comforting blanket. Everything around her was disenchanted, apart from this one thing. Thank God that she had the mills and, through them, a reason to see Ashley again. It was the only thing that made life bearable these days.

::o::o::o::

"Hush, Mister Alex, hush! You gonna wake up your sister!"

Rhett appeared in the doorway of Scarlett's bedroom and surveyed the scene in front of him with a raised eyebrow. Mammy was pacing the room with a wailing Alexander in her arms. Against her shoulder his little face had turned bright red. Scarlett had been at home earlier, when Rhett and Bonnie had left for a walk, but there was no sign of her now.

"Have the Huns invaded?" he asked mildly from the doorway.

"Mister Rhett," Mammy wheeled around, "you're home! Mister Alex's teeth comin' out and he ain't happy. Miss Ella's asleep in the nursery and he gonna wake her up."

"Bonnie's asleep as well." They'd had to come home much earlier than he'd intended, for she had started to fall asleep before him on the saddle. "I take it Scarlett's not home?"

"No, sir," Mammy replied and a look passed between the two of them. But she didn't say anything more. Rhett's eyes were drawn to the vanity, to the disarray of jewelry boxes, hairpins and pots of rouge that had been so familiar to him once. He nodded softly, as if to himself, and was gone.

He returned less than five minutes later. In that interval, not only that Alexander had not stopped crying, but his wails seemed to have gotten louder and more insistent, as if Mammy's murmured soothing had ceased to work at all. At that pace, he _was_ going to wake up both of his sisters soon. Rhett leaned against the doorjamb, hands in his pockets, and the old woman stopped her pacing to throw him a vaguely pleading look.

"No sign of quieting?"

"Maybe if you hold him, Mister Rhett. You mighty good with babies. You know Miss Bonnie didn't hush up for nobody else."

He threw her an inscrutable look, but Mammy did not blink under the scrutiny. She waited silently in place until Rhett finally nodded curtly and made his way to them, his hands still firmly jammed in his pockets. And then she passed the baby into his arms, whose relaxed comfort was belied by the tense line of Rhett's shoulders. Startled by the change, Alexander ceased his crying. He watched his father with wide eyes and hiccupped.

"I gonna go down get him a little chamomile, see if he settle down," Mammy announced and was gone with the speed of a woman half her age. Father and son studied each other in silence for a few moments after the door closed.

"So, little fellow, shall we wipe your nose?" Rhett asked softly, drawing a handkerchief from his breast pocket. He only got to dab gently at the boy's cheeks, before little fists closed around the cloth and Alex drew its corner into his mouth.

"Ah, we've got ourselves a toothless little rodent," his father said good-naturedly. "But you're severely mistaken, my boy, if you think I am going to let you chew up my handkerchief like that. Don't give me that look. It might work on your mother and Mammy, but I'm wise to it, you know."

::o::o::o::

It happened in the blink of an eye.

Her heart had beat an eager tattoo as her carriage neared the lumber yard. If Hugh Elsing and his men were not there, she would have to drive on, for she couldn't visit Ashley alone like that, not after what had happened last spring. But they were all at their posts, loading lumber onto wagons, and she waved hello to them with a studiedly casual air, as she breathed a sigh of relief. She had waited for the right moment ever since she'd come back, waited for Bonnie and Rhett to be out for a whole afternoon. She didn't think Rhett would say anything to her now, but she hadn't wanted to risk that nasty knowing look in his eyes. She left the door open as she went into the little office, knowing that the working men were safely out of earshot and she would in effect be alone with Ashley.

Yet something had been wrong from the very beginning, even before that terrible split second of her revelation. Ashley had come from behind his desk to greet her and the sun from the windows had slanted brightly on his hair. And even in that golden light, her first thought had been that he looked tired and faded almost to greyness, and her heart did not constrict in tenderness as before, but in impatience. He had no business looking so old, she thought and castigated herself immediately for her disloyalty.

"Scarlett, how are you?" he greeted her and his smile was his drowsy smile of old, despite an intangible note of distance in it now. "If you are here for this month's ledgers, I am afraid I will have to disappoint you once again. They have defeated me as soundly as ever. But I will get them to you within the week, I promise."

"Oh, don't lets talk about the ledgers!" she said quickly, for she didn't want to be annoyed with him. She knew full well that all of the past months' ledgers had had to be redone by Rhett. She dimpled sweetly at him, hoping he would understand all she could not put in words. "I came by for them, yes, but also… just to see how you were."

"How I am?" he inclined his head in gentle teasing. "It's you who's been the traveler."

But he caught the almost pleading look in her eyes and acquiesced. He talked then of the mills and of life in Atlanta, smoothly avoiding the personal, enveloping the foibles of everyone around him in that kind, detached humor of his that she had never been able to grasp. And as she listened to the soft cadence of his words, a sort of baffled disillusion grew inside her. For somewhere along the way something had gone wrong. She'd only seen him a few times over the last year, and every time she had had the impression that something was lacking. She'd wished Melanie and Rhett to the end of the earth so many times, for it was their constant presence that made Ashley so restrained, made him seem almost like a fading picture of himself in which she struggled to find the lines that she so loved. But if they were alone together, if she had him to herself for only a few minutes, it would be like old times again, she knew.

But now—now they _were_ alone and her heart was not singing in her chest. If anything, she was slightly bored with his tales and miserable at the realization with the sinking, desperate misery of one who's lost their path through a dark forest and grasps around blindly to regain it. Never analytical, she couldn't grasp what was missing. She only knew there was a word somewhere that would make everything all right between them again, and if Ashley didn't say it, she would have to—except that she couldn't think what it was. She couldn't tell him that she missed him, that she loved him, not while there was any danger they'd be overheard, not while he looked like a stranger instead of her Ashley.

What she really wished she could tell him was something of herself, of her life—and have him make sense of it, the way Rhett once used to, except in a better light, for Ashley always saw the good and noble in her. Yet when she thought of what to tell him, there was nothing. She would have liked to discuss her businesses with someone, but Ashley was no good for that. The weight of her day to day life pressed on her too, but it was too diffuse to be made sense of, even had she wanted to do it. She could tell him about the County, of course. She could tell him all she had kept out of her story to Rhett—the desolation of the abandoned fields, the hardness in people's eyes, the decay. He would smile that sad smile of his and he would say something melancholy and beautiful whose meaning she would yearn to grasp but fail. At any other time in the past that prospect would have filled her with both wild hope and despair, but not now.

Now she didn't want to hear the beautiful convoluted things he had to say, she realized in a flash. She resisted the thought for a second, for this was after all Ashley. How could she not want to hear what he had to say, when it might finally provide the answer to the fine, unattainable question that was him, the question she had been trying to solve for years? It felt disloyal, it felt almost sacrilegious. But it was too late. The knowledge could not be pushed back. Her mind pressed on, like a finger pulling at a small hole in the seam of a fabric until the whole cloth lay split apart for good. And as Ashley leaned back against his seat and the afternoon sun caressed his hair again, she thought dispassionately to herself, "I do not love him."

The knowledge washed over her in the blink of an eye, and she struggled to fight against it in a cold panic. "But I do love him! I've loved him for years! It cannot be true! Love cannot change to apathy in a minute!" But it could change and it had changed. It was useless to try to combat the idea. It was there, in front of her eyes, as solid as death, and just as unescapable. It was why, when she looked at him now, it was like she was seeing him from a very great distance. Like he could be any other man. It was why his voice—still drawling, resonant, musical—no longer made her heart leap. _Oh, Ashley!_ she thought in numb misery.

"Are you all right, Scarlett?" He'd been talking to her, she realized but could only nod mutely in response. "Would you mind if I left you alone for a moment? Hugh will need the bill for that transport, I'm afraid."

At first all she felt was a painful rush of relief that he hadn't read her countenance and found out her betrayal. For once he knew, there would be no going back, and the thought filled her with almost superstitious fear. Yet fast on the heels of that feeling, another, more insidious, seeped into her consciousness. How could he not tell that she was not all right, that she had in fact received a blow to the very foundation of her being? How could he leave her alone at a time like this? This was after all Ashley, who'd always known her mind better than she had, who saw things in her that were invisible to anyone else. "My dear, he doesn't even know you've got a mind," a softly jeering voice whispered in her memory. It couldn't be true, could it? She had resisted that cynical voice for years, but now, the dazzling light of her love dimmed low, she saw that it had been right.

She cast her mind over their long acquaintance, over all the precious moments she'd clutched so tenderly to her chest before, searching for a hint that she was wrong. But there was none. "He doesn't love me," she said slowly to herself. "How could he love me when he doesn't even know me? He wants me like—like Rhett wants that Watling woman. But he doesn't love me and never has." Her mind, always brutally straightforward once on the path of honesty, absorbed this new realization and she probed at it gingerly, surprised to find that it did not hurt as much as she would have expected. He didn't love her and she didn't care, for she didn't love him either. And she hadn't loved him for a long time. Her love had not just melted in a moment; it had been gone for years. She hadn't loved him last April, when he'd embraced her in this office. And, if she was honest with herself, she'd hardly thought of him at all after that, before she went to Tara.

When had it happened, when had she ceased to love him without noticing it? Oh, but what did it matter? Perhaps she'd never really loved him. Perhaps she'd made a pretty suit of clothes and fell in love with it. And, when Ashley had come riding along, so handsome and different, she'd put that suit on him and made him wear whether it fitted him or not. She couldn't see what he really was beneath it—and if she had, she would not have loved him at all. For there was no comfort in him, no security, only weakness and endless talk of honor, sacrifice and high notions. _Oh, Ashley_ she thought again, but this time with bitter weariness. Without warning, the afternoon had turned to ashes in her mouth.

By the time he came back into the room, Scarlett was already up and ready to leave. She would have paced the office in impatience, but there was an almost painful weightlessness in her feet and the pit of her stomach, as if she had fallen from a very great height and could not quite tell if she was done falling. She needed to go home.

"I'm sorry, Scarlett—" Ashley started, but she interrupted him immediately.

"No, don't worry. I do have to go home now. I didn't tell them I would be this long," she said with a small pale smile. She stopped in the doorway and said without turning, "And Ashley, _do_ send me those ledgers tomorrow. I can't wait any longer for them."

She would never afterwards remember the ride home. She'd had somehow managed to make mechanical small talk with Hugh on her way to her carriage, for a corner of her mind recognized that he mustn't think anything was amiss, not on her first visit to the lumber yard in a year. And then she'd sunk in her seat, trying her best not to think of the shape of her new world, now that one of its main pillars had collapsed. She'd have time to think of that tomorrow. She'd have time to think of that for the rest of her life. For now, it was enough to go home. The baby would need to be fed soon and she would take supper in her room as well. That prospect of almost cozy order was soothing, and she forced her mind to focus on it. Anything more and the residual strand of strength that was carrying her would snap.

Yet even that small comfort was to flee from her grasp. When she entered her room, there was no sign of either Mammy or Prissy, and Alex was not in his crib. She frowned and turned to go to the nursery, but then something caught her eye. Her heart hitched in alarm when she saw Rhett's frame in the big velvet armchair by the window. He was never in her room. Perhaps something had happened to Alex, perhaps he was here to tell her… But as she took two hasty steps towards him, she froze, arrested. For, if her eyes were not deceiving her, he was not merely lounging in the big armchair, he was asleep. And on his chest was Alex, who looked like he had succumbed to sleep while chewing on his father's neckcloth, a corner of which was still in his mouth. His little fists were buried in the richly-embroidered cloth, and one of Rhett's hands was curled protectively around his back. This scene—as unexpected, as it was tender—struck Scarlett like an underhanded blow to the chest, the last that afternoon had to deliver, and she reeled from it. She could see it already. Rhett would have Alex now, like he already had Bonnie. And, on this day, she had nothing.

Late in the afternoon, when Rhett came downstairs, he found her sitting on the sofa in the dark parlor. He cleared his throat.

"I believe your presence is required upstairs," he said without elaborating and she nodded briefly. She would need to feed the baby now. As she rose to leave the room, the light from the hallway fell on her face and he drew in a swift breath at the pale misery written on it. In her white face, her eyes were red-rimmed and vacant.

"Have you been to the lumber office today?" he asked when she'd already reached the door.

She answered him without turning and Rhett stared at the doorway long after she'd left, a look of speculative bitterness on his face.


	4. Chapter 4

_In an unexpected turn of events, it didn't me take a whole year to get out the next chapter for this! I should credit your amazing reviews, Kinderby's insistence that I FIX THEM NOW, and all my other work that lends itself so well to procrastination. I should also credit iso, who was amazingly fast at reading this and didn't hold my Cutesy Cardboard Baby against me too much. Oh, and as a reviewer pointed out, this story will obviously not have 3 chapters as I optimistically announced when I first posted it. I_ think _it will have one other chapter and an epilogue. We're getting there. I've again borrowed some dialogue from MM, but it's okay, because I made it a lot less sad this time around._

* * *

That dark afternoon in the parlor was followed by a few dull weeks, weaving their grayness loosely around Scarlett. Where once Ashley's luminous figure stood in her heart, now there was nothing, and the rest of her life stretched in front of her like an indifferent sea, unbracketed by any beacons. She would get through this eventually, she knew. She always had in the past. But then she had always been fighting for something concrete—money, security, Ashley's love—and now for the first time she was aimless. She felt much like she had during Rhett and Bonnie's absence, depression a dark presence crowing on her shoulder—except that there was no return to look forward to now, no birth to anticipate with something like joy.

She lacked the quality of mind that could turn old ruined love into pity and kindness, and so the mere thought of Ashley filled her with irritation now. In the harsh light of disenchantment, the realization had come to her that she had not only lost a lover in him, she had gained a burden. He would be helpless for the rest of his days, and she would have him like a stone around her neck for just as long. There was no way around it; not while he owned a share of her mills. And somehow that fact came to embody all her past foolishness and Ashley's weakness. He should have never allowed himself to cling to her skirts all these years, and she should have never taken him on, never prevented him from going up North. But now it was too late. The thought of buying back his interest in the mills had come to her, but she'd had to reject it out of hand. It rankled her that she should pay good money to get back something she had once bestowed on him as a gift. And, even if that hadn't been the case, she knew Ashley well enough to know that he would never accept that deal. He would sign over his share and resign on the spot, and then he and Melly would be destitute. She could not, in good conscience, allow that to happen.

The fact irritated her sharply, for not only that it meant she should have to swallow his financial losses forever, but it also impeded her own direct involvement with the mills. She had once rejoiced at the opportunity to see Ashley alone at least once every few weeks. Now she mourned the thought of visiting her own lumber office only ever so rarely. For while her love had threatened to become public knowledge the previous spring, its death was a secret known only to herself. Atlanta's eyes were still on her and, because of that, she couldn't spend her time at the mills in the foreseeable feature—leaving aside the overwhelming fatigue that engulfed her at the prospect of seeing Ashley again.

She didn't know what to say to him. She was certain now that he didn't love her, that he was just as mistaken about it as she'd been all these years. It was strange to think that she now understood something about Ashley that he himself did not, yet this did not extend to any strong interest in illuminating him. She bristled finely at the prospect of being his keeper in this, like in everything else. And, besides, what difference would it make if he knew? Both of their lives would continue just as before. That their delicate hidden workings might be altered with this knowledge she did not see, for she was entirely unimaginative about other people's inner lives and had lost any trace of interest in picturing Ashley's. She had spent years trying to decipher him and now that she'd received her answer, the question was no longer worth asking.

Without much enthusiasm, she resigned herself to taking care of the store and correcting the ledgers at home, where the children and Rhett sometimes joined her in the sitting room. They had all reached a strange new equilibrium together that had started the day after she had returned home to find Alexander sleeping in Rhett's arms. She'd woken up with a headache and stayed in her room until well after lunch, when Mammy came in to announce that Mister Rhett wanted to take young Alexander for a walk. Scarlett had nodded cheerlessly, for this was exactly as she'd envisioned it to be. Rhett had finally discovered his son and, being Rhett, would now want to have him all to himself. The forces were so unequal on that front that it was useless to even wage battle. That helpless torpor lasted for less than two hours. It was about to resolve itself into combativeness by the time Rhett, Bonnie and Alexander returned home from their walk—except that it was stopped in its tracks at the sight of Alex smiling at her and wiggling imperiously in Rhett's arms to be set free.

"Daddy, he wants you to put him down now!" Bonnie declared impatiently.

She hadn't enjoyed her walk at all. Used to having Rhett's undivided attention, she had spent most of her time advising her father of the baby's likely thoughts, which all included a strong desire to be left at home or at least be put back in the baby carriage Prissy was pushing behind them. Her aggravation had reached maximum levels at her Aunt Melly's, where she was unexpectedly sent to play in the nursery, while her father and the baby stayed with Aunt Melly in the parlor. She'd tried to convince Rhett to leave Alex in every bush up Peachtree Street on their way back.

"He was a little impatient to return," Rhett said quietly, leaning down to place Alexander in Scarlett's arms.

She felt something unfurl in her chest as the baby quieted instantly against her. Her entire life, she had wanted to be first in the hearts of those around her. Ashley was lost to her, Rhett and Bonnie would always be first with each other, Wade and Ella were afraid of her. But she had Alexander still and she would have him no matter what Rhett did. Over the following weeks, a pattern was established. Rhett would take Alexander for the occasional walk in the afternoon. She suspected he also spent time with the boy when she was at the store, though she had never again had the chance to verify that. And, most unexpected of all, the children and Rhett had started keeping her company in the sitting room when she was working on the ledgers. Wade would sit on the sofa with a book, while Rhett played with Alex and the girls on the floor. It was like the days after Bonnie was born, days whose polite distance had been more amiable, days that in retrospect seemed quite comfortable. And, though Rhett and the children rarely talked to her, she'd come to find their presence almost soothing.

One day, Scarlett returned from the store in the late afternoon and found Rhett and Alexander in the parlor. She stopped in the doorway, a little uncertain. She had not seen the two of them alone together after that momentous day of her visit to the lumber office. Alexander was sitting up against the back of the sofa, mesmerized by the pocket watch that Rhett was dangling in front of him and snatching away before his tiny fists could close around it.

"Hello. Is everything all right?" she said.

Father and son looked up at the same time and she almost took a step back. For a moment, the similarity in their features was striking, compounded by what seemed to her, for a split second, to be almost identical expressions at the sound of her voice. She blinked and it was gone. Rhett's face had smoothed itself to customary blandness.

"Oh yes," he said. "Alexander is keeping me company down here. The girls are taking their naps."

The baby gurgled and batted his arms towards Scarlett, seemingly determined to launch himself off the sofa. "Oh, all right," she said with a little laugh and sat down gingerly on the other side of him. Rhett flipped his watch closed and put it back in his pocket.

"The honorable Ashley was here earlier."

Scarlett, who'd been smiling and cooing at the baby, stopped abruptly.

"I would have thought you'd gone to the lumber office today," Rhett continued, "but he said you hadn't been there in weeks."

"I was busy at the store," she replied warily. "What did Ashley want anyway?"

"He wanted to know if I thought you would sell him your mill and the part interest you have in his. He would have discussed it with you earlier, but he couldn't find you."

"Sell?" she started in surprise. "Where on earth did Ashley get the money? You know they never have a cent. Why, he and Melanie spend money faster than he makes it!"

Rhett shrugged. "I always thought Miss Melly a frugal little person, but then I'm not as well informed about the intimate details of the Wilkes family as you seem to be."

That jab seemed in something of Rhett's old style and Scarlett set her jaw, almost reflexively. Yet she did not reply, for her mind was whirling with possibilities. She'd thought she would be saddled with Ashley for all eternity, but if he had money, then everything changed. It would be easier to set him adrift and have her mills back if he had some capital to his name. There had to be something he could do, some other business he could invest in…

"As to where he got the money," Rhett continued, "it seems it was sent him by someone he nursed through a case of smallpox at Rock Island. It renews my faith in human nature to know that gratitude still exists."

"Who was it? Anyone we know?" she asked distractedly, trying to save the small ribbons on her skirt from Alexander's grip. Her mind was still wrapping itself busily around this unexpected opportunity.

"The letter was unsigned and came from Washington. Ashley was at a loss to know who could have sent it. But then, one of Ashley's unselfish temperament goes about the world doing so many good deeds that you can't expect him to remember all of them."

Scarlett rolled her eyes in annoyance and impatience. "So you said he wants to buy me out?"

"Yes. But of course, I told him you wouldn't sell."

"Good," she nodded at him approvingly. "Of course I won't sell."

"I knew you wouldn't part with the mills. I told him that he knew as well as I did that you couldn't bear not to have your finger in everybody's pie, and if you sold out to him, then you wouldn't be able to tell him how to mind his own business."

He was goading her, she realized and was immediately irritated by the thought. He looked faintly bored, but she had the vague feeling that, underneath it, he was displeased. He must have wanted this, to antagonize her, and he thought he could now jockey her into selling. But she'd be damned if she lost her mills because of Rhett's perversity. Divine providence had sent this to her and there would never be a better opportunity to be rid of Ashley.

"You dared say that about me?" she said coldly.

"Why not? It's true, isn't it? I believe he heartily agreed with me but, of course, he was too much of a gentleman to come right out and say so."

"You both can go to—Halifax," she said testily, reflexively covering Alexander's ears. "I will not sell him anything. Those are my mills and he will run them into the ground in a month. How much money does he have anyway?"

Rhett hesitated almost imperceptibly. "He didn't say."

"It must be a sizeable sum if he wanted to buy me out," she mused aloud. "He's too honorable to offer less than they're worth."

"A model of gentlemanly conduct." Rhett's voice fairly crackled with sarcasm now, but she paid no attention, her mind busily running over options. Was there anything that Ashley was good at, anything that would allow him to stand on his own two feet?

"There must be something he could do with the money. Perhaps—he could open a bookstore?" she said uncertainly and Rhett's gaze flew sharply to her face. "The books he buys are so expensive. I swear the people selling them must be making a fortune! Ah, but then he and Melanie would just keep all of the books and never sell a thing..."

Not to mention that Ashley would never do behind the counter. He was just not born for that sort of thing. She sighed and bit her lip. There had to be something that was easy enough and dignified enough for him to do. What would he have done if he didn't have the mill? The idea came to her in a flash. It would mean asking Rhett for a favor, of course, and he could be so nasty. But there was nothing to be done. She cast him a look through her lashes. There was an unreadable expression on his face, one she didn't think she had seen before. Perhaps he would go for it. He was so polite lately, goading though he'd been about selling the mills. And he'd always been against Ashley working there. There were other, darker things lurking behind that last thought, but she pushed them aside before she lost her nerve.

"Maybe you could have them hire him at the bank?" she said with studied nonchalance. Rhett sat back in his seat.

"You want me to hire Ashley Wilkes?" He enunciated every word slowly.

"Not you, the bank," she said quickly. "They let you do anything you want there, don't they? He could work at the bank and put his money into stocks. And you know, before he—offered to help me with the mills, someone had offered him a job at a bank in New York. It would be perfect, even if he did have to work with numbers."

"My dear," he said quietly, "sharp tongues will find more fodder in this situation than merely Ashley Wilkes' ability with numbers—as worthy of public discussion as that is."

"What—"

His meaning dawned on her and she clamped her mouth shut. He meant it would look as if he'd hired Ashley to get him away from the mills and _her_. It would look like he was a jealous husband. All the half-forgotten, never-discussed things she had pushed aside to ask him the question suddenly came rushing back and, to her misfortune, she felt herself blush to the roots of her hair under Rhett's gaze. She made a motion to get up from the sofa, but Rhett took pity on her.

"He could work for your Uncle Henry," he said, as if he hadn't noticed her discomfiture. His voice sounded almost kind.

"For Uncle Henry?"

"He always complains that he cannot find a half-literate clerk to help him with his paperwork."

"Yes, that could work. But, Rhett..." she hesitated and then decided she might as well tell him the truth, since he seemed inclined to be helpful. "Uncle Henry already spends most of his time helping orphans and widows. If you add Ashley to it, they'll go under in a month."

Rhett started to laugh softly, his shoulders shaking. "Listen, my dear. As remarkably entertaining as I currently find this conversation, your Uncle Henry is no fool. He used to invest before the war and, given the capital, could make a tidy return again, enough to support Miss Pittypat and the Wilkeses. Let Ashley give him the money and hang around as a clerk."

It was the perfect solution, she thought, and barely kept herself from clapping her hands in glee. Thank God for Rhett and his shrewd mind! She gave him a small approving smile and something flickered briefly in his eyes.

"Then that's that," she said. "But someone has to tell Uncle Henry. I don't think he would want to hear it from me. Maybe you could—?"

"Ashley will," Rhett said firmly. And then, after a beat of silence, he added, "I can talk to Ashley, if you prefer."

He was waiting for her answer with his old keen, cat-at-a-mouse-hole look. She wondered, quite irrelevantly, what he would look like if he ever caught that mouse and felt obscurely flustered.

"Yes, that would be good," she murmured, for she was none too eager to talk to Ashley herself, let alone with Rhett present. She could not see his face, for he suddenly reached to pick up a silver rattle that Alexander had thrown under a chair before her arrival, but she thought she'd caught a gleam of triumph in his eyes.


End file.
